title: Harm in the absence of care: Towards a medical ethics that cares.
abstract: The aim of this article is to investigate the concept of care in contemporary medical practice and medical ethics. Although care has been hailed throughout the centuries as a crucial ideal in medical practice and as an honourable virtue to be observed in codes of medical ethics, I argue that contemporary medicine and medical ethics suffer from the lack of a theoretically sustainable concept of care and then discuss possible reasons that may help to explain this absence. I draw on the empirical studies of Carol Gilligan on care and connectedness as ontologically situated realities in human life. Based on a philosophical elaboration of her findings on the ethics of care emphasizing relationality, I try to show how the notion of 'relational ontology' originating from this stream of thought may be of help in developing a medical ethics that acknowledges care as a perspective to be observed in all interactions between physicians and patients.
authors.affiliation: Section for Medical Ethics, Institute of Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, PO BOX 1130, Blindern, 0318 Oslo, Norway. e.h.martinsen@medisin.uio.no
authors.forename: Elin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Martinsen
mesh_terms: D004645:Empathy / Q000941:ethics; D028663:Ethical Theory; D026690:Ethics, Clinical; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D009014:Morals; D010344:Patient Advocacy / Q000941:ethics; D005791:Patient Care / Q000941:ethics*; D028662:Principle-Based Ethics; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations / Q000941:ethics*; D012945:Social Values; D028722:Virtues